


Back to You

by IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood Pact, Fluff, Getting Back Together, HEA, M/M, Nurmengard, One Shot, duel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21861595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis/pseuds/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis
Summary: We all know how ‘reliable’ Rita Skeeter is – but what if she was right to say that there was no duel – that Grindelwald simply surrendered to Dumbledore?
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 10
Kudos: 97





	Back to You

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song _All This Time_ by One Republic
> 
> From HP7: Rita Skeeter on the 1945 duel between Gridelwald and Dumbledore:  
> “… don’t be so sure that there really was the spectacular duel of legend. After they’ve read my book, people may be forced to conclude that Grindelwald simply conjured a white handkerchief from the end of his wand and came quietly!”
> 
> Everything belongs to JKRowling.

It was not going to be easily accomplished. He was being watched. But seeing Gellert was imperative. Finally, Albus hit on the answer. Bathilda. He was simply visiting an old family friend.

“Albus! It has been so long. Aren’t you handsome!”  
“Old, you mean.”  
Bathilda swatted him. “I know that you are not complaining about your age to me, young man. I have fifty years on you.”  
Albus smiled. “And you don’t look a day over forty.”  
“You, Albus, are a liar. But I will happily pretend that is true.”

Albus sobered. “I’m sorry I haven’t been to visit you Bathilda. It’s…”  
“Bad memories. I know, dear. Are you sure you really want to see Gellert?”  
Albus wanted to see him more than anything. _Almost_ more than anything. Albus' actions over the past decades betrayed that what he truly wanted more than anything was for Gellert to give up his idiotic revolution, so that they could be together.  
Albus sighed. He wished the two of them had not been so stubborn. He should have seen Gellert anyway. He had been weak - afraid that he would lose his head and join Gellert just to be near him. But looking back – it had been too many wasted years.  
“Very much. It has been too long.”

Bathilda looked like she was ready to scold him. Gellert had been to Godric’s Hollow once a year since 1902, and each time had invited Albus to meet him there. Bathilda must know.  
In the end, all she said to Albus was, “Don’t hurt him. He hurts himself enough.”  
Albus considered that Gellert wasn’t hurting himself nearly enough if he was still inciting others to violence on such a scale.  
But he couldn’t hold onto that thought. He didn’t want Gellert to be in pain. Not really. That’s what he was here for. To protect Gellert, to care for him after so many years of Gellert failing to care for himself. Maybe his pain was what had been driving his madness.

“He’s upstairs, dear.”  
Merlin, no. In his old room? Hopefully it did not look the same.  
Moving up the stairs, Albus would have had no more trepidation if he were going to Azkaban. He opened the door to Gellert’s old room – it was entirely the same, with the exception of the 62 year old man sitting on the end of the bed. He didn’t look like the photos of him in the paper. He was wearing the dragonhide trousers, but no vest or jacket – only a simple white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal a tattoo of the mark of the Deathly Hallows. Albus had a matching one that no one but Gellert – and one or two Healers at St. Mungo’s – had ever seen.  
But the most striking difference was the expression on his face. In the papers, he looked either defiant, or cold, or simply flat – occluding.  
Here, he looked – sad? Cautious?  
Albus was sure that neither of them was looking hopeful in this moment.

“Albus.”  
Albus couldn’t say anything. He just kept staring at Gellert. Seeing him so many times over the years in the Mirror of Erised, it was difficult to accept that Gellert was real this time.  
Albus turned his back on Gellert and looked out the window. His old house was gone – blasted away, it looked like. He wondered if Gellert was responsible. He couldn’t blame him. Albus might have done it himself if he had had the courage to come back to the village at all.  
So many years. 

“It’s over, Gellert.”  
“It has been over for 46 years, Albus, as your silence has so eloquently reminded me.”  
“Don’t willfully misunderstand me. Your revolution. It’s done. Too many of your people have died, there is no one left to pick up where they left off. Your project of exterminating the majority of the Muggles has been thwarted.”  
“It is still possible –“  
“Gellert. You are the smartest man I have ever met. You know you’ve lost. There’s no way forward from here.”

“So, the first time you’ve come to see me, and it has been only to rub it in.”  
Albus turned around.  
“The Ministry has been asking me to kill you. They’ve been asking me for almost 20 years. They know you are weak now – it is becoming impossible to say no without being sent to Azkaban myself for treason.”  
“Ah – I understand – you are here not to mock me, but to kill me.” Gellert smiled the half smile that meant he was joking, but pretending that Albus didn’t know he wasn’t serious.  
“Naturally. That, and Bathilda’s shepherd’s pie. If I make sure she doesn’t discover you until after dinner…”

Gellert laughed then.  
“Oh, Albus. I have missed you.”  
Albus had missed Gellert too, but he did not yet feel safe to say so.  
“So tell me, why are you really here, then?”  
“I think that we are going to have to stage a duel. But I want to discuss terms with you first. For instance, the duel should take place on the Continent, so that I can prevent you going to Azkaban. But you will know better than I which country would be best.”  
“You mean, we are going to have to stage a duel where you win, in spite of me holding the Elder Wand.”

Oh! “Is that why you are not using your old wand? I had speculated that it might be the Elder Wand, but I had not known for sure. Your magic was so impressive already.”  
Gellert tipped his head at the compliment, but did not otherwise acknowledge it. Albus considered that he might not be feeling safe either. 

Albus sat down next to Gellert and took a pendant out of his pocket. Gellert’s looked at it in shock, and then at Albus.  
“I couldn’t bring myself to destroy it. It – I –“  
‘I love you’ is what Albus couldn’t say. ‘I still love you.’  
“So you can’t actually duel me?”  
“Well, I can as an exhibition, as a game. But no, not to hurt you. I need you to go willingly, because it will be worse if it isn’t me.”

Albus placed the blood pact in Gellert’s hand and Gellert reached out to Albus with his other hand – then stopped, as if there were a fence between them, and no stile. He laid his hand back down on the bed.  
Albus would have to be first, then. He ran his fingers through Gellert’s hair, and smiled mischievously. “This haircut is ridiculous.”  
“So is yours,” Gellert answered. “You should grow it back out.”  
“I will if you will.”  
Gellert laughed at Albus. “Is this part of the negotiation?”  
“No,” said Albus, “and neither is this.” He kissed Gellert. It felt different from when they were boys. They were both so tentative now. Touch starved and frightened.

“Albus – “ said Gellert. “Don’t. We can’t –“  
“Well, I imagine we can, now. What was holding me back was wanting you to give up your revolution. And you wanted me to give up my devotion to the opposing side. And all of that is ending now in spite of both of us.”  
“I’m going to prison, you idiot.”  
Albus smiled. It had been a long time since Gellert had called him an idiot. He only did that when he didn’t actually think Albus was being an idiot.  
He kissed Gellert again, more confidently this time. He might be an idiot, but he was Gellert’s idiot now. Again.

“What if I could get you imprisoned in Nurmengard?”  
“That’s no better, Albus. The dungeons there are miserable.”  
“I believe that, given my status as the vanquisher of the dreaded Grindelwald, I might be allowed regular visits. During which time I could routinely confund the guards, so that you could actually be in the main part of the castle, barring when there were inspections by the ICW. Then we would need to lock you up. Make you look properly punished.”  
“A confundus doesn’t last so long.”  
“Perhaps it does if we use the Elder Wand.”

Gellert tapped his fingers on his thigh. He seemed to be considering this. But no – he was considering something completely different.  
“And these visits of yours. Would they be – conjugal visits?”  
Albus blushed.  
“You’re moving mighty fast, aren’t you?”  
“Always.”

Two kisses, and his confidence was back already. This man. Any minute now, he was going to –  
Gellert dragged Albus up into the bed, and climbed on top of him.  
“You are as handsome as ever.”  
“I certainly am not.”  
“You are!” Gellert leaned down and kissed Albus hungrily, aggressively. This – this was more what he remembered kissing Gellert feeling like. Albus wrapped his arms around Gellert pulling him close, and lost himself in Gellert’s mouth, Gellert’s body.

Gellert began unbuttoning Albus’ shirt.  
“Don’t you dare, Gellert Grindelwald. This is the first time we’ve seen each other in more than 40 years. We need to build back up to that.”  
“As I recall, it only took you about three days to ‘build up to that,’ the first time” Gellert answered. “Yes. I have decided which wand I would like to duel you with.”  
“Gellert!”

“Do we really need witnesses, if the end result is that you have my wand, and have me in your custody? This is one of the terms. The ‘duel’ takes place naked, in bed. Or on a floor if you prefer. Or a shower would be fine too, but that seems a bit acrobatic for men our age. Good thing we have magic…”  
Was this really happening?  
“It seems appropriate that you dominate me, under the circumstances.”  
“For fuck’s sake, Gellert!”  
“Yes, Liebe, that is the idea.”

This was not at all what Albus had expected. But – along with all of the other things he had missed about Gellert… his humour and intelligence and energy were as exciting in bed as they were everywhere else.  
Albus sighed as if put-upon, masking his growing enthusiasm for Gellert’s idea. “So where shall we have this – duel?”  
“Perhaps Nurmengard? Then you can lock me in the dungeon at the conclusion, and you can present the result. It will be hard to move me once I am already imprisoned. And the cells exceed ICW standards for magic suppression and security and the like.”  
Nurmengard. Gellert’s castle. 

“There are so many rooms to choose from. I think that we may have to duel for a long time.”  
Albus rolled his eyes. But he did love it when Gellert got like this. Mischievous. Hungry.  
“Perhaps,” Albus said, as if simply testing out an idea that he was actually now invested in. “Perhaps we should practice. I don’t know about you, but it has been a long time for me.” Forty-six years, to be precise.  
“Yes, a long time. This is a good idea. Perhaps we need to practice now and again after dinner.”  
Albus smiled, “Perhaps so.” And he reached up to pull Gellert’s head down to kiss him one more time, hoping that there would be many more times for years into the future.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know about you, but in spite of Rita's assertion, Gellert has never struck me as a man who comes quietly.


End file.
